In a quiet room of a museum in Washington, cameras and cell phones focus on a small piece of rock, no bigger than a piece of gravel. The fragment may seem insignificant, but it is a sample taken from the asteroid Bennu, which scientists are studying in the hopes of finding out whether the asteroid […]
So as a precaution, Roscosmos, the Russian space agency, returned the ship to Earth. It sent another, empty one – which meant there would be room for Rubio and company to return, but they would have to pick up the mission assigned to the crew that was originally supposed to be on that other ship. […]
Asteroids are composed of the original materials of the Solar System, which are about 4.5 billion years old, and have remained relatively intact. “They can give us clues about how the solar system formed and evolved,” said Melissa Morris, OSIRIS-Rex program executive. “This is our own origin story.” “We believe that asteroids and comets that […]
The launch of Luna-25 on 11 August was the first such Russian mission in nearly 50 years and marked the beginning of Moscow’s new lunar project.The lander was successfully placed in lunar orbit on August 16, but on Sunday, the space agency Roscosmos announced that it “ceased to exist after a collision with the lunar […]
While climbing the slope of a sedimentary mountain in 2021, Curiosity found salt deposits forming a hexagonal pattern in the soil from about four billion years ago. According to the study published in the journal Nature, the rover’s instruments identified patterns in the form of cracks in the dry soil. “When the lake dries up […]
Under the Artemis program, NASA is planning a series of missions of increasing complexity to return to the Moon and create a sustained presence to develop and test technologies for the eventual journey to Mars. The first, Artemis 1, will fly an unmanned spacecraft around the Moon in 2022. Artemis 2, planned for November 2024, […]
Information collected on precipitation, temperature and humidity can help scientists determine where a hurricane will hit and how strong it will be, allowing people living in coastal areas to better prepare for possible evacuations. There will be help. “Many operational organizations such as the National Hurricane Center and the Joint Typhoon Warning Center and many […]
For its scientific missions, NASA has tasked industry with developing an unpressurized — that is, open top — rover designed for two people by 2028. Unlike the rovers of the Apollo missions, it would have to operate autonomously even without astronauts on board. This means surviving the cold lunar nights, which can last up to […]
Wiseman, the mission commander, said the diverse crew was made up of “extraordinary operators”. “We are all professional explorers,” he told AFP. Wiseman said, “We are representing our country, but we need the whole world to follow us.” François-Philippe Champagne, Canada’s Minister of Innovation, Science and Industry, attended the event and said that his country […]
Relativity aims to build a rocket that is 95 percent 3D-printed. Terran 1 is propelled by engines using liquid oxygen and liquid natural gas—the “propellant of the future,” capable of eventually fueling travel to Mars, says Relativity. SpaceX’s Starship and Vulcan rockets being developed by United Launch Alliance use the same fuel. Relativity is also […]
NASA’s Curiosity rover has found rippled rocks – evidence of an ancient lake – in a region of the planet that is expected to dry up, the US space agency said on Wednesday. “This is the best evidence of water and waves that we’ve seen in the entire mission,” said Ashwin Vasavada, Curiosity’s project scientist […]
Francois Forget, an astrophysicist at France’s CNRS scientific research center, said that “this new impetus for cooperation is linked to the fact that this time the US has a joint project with Europe: Mars sample return.” The mission, planned for around 2030, aims to return to Earth samples collected from Mars by both ExoMars and […]
